W o W [photographic works that inspire] - active

2011 is nearing to an end, it has been a great year, managed to get some cool sightings and photographs on the herpetology front, my first tiger sighting at 8 – 10 feet away from me, a big getty sale and the new year promises a lot. A collection of my best photographs from 2011 have made it into a calendar for 2012. If you need a copy please drop me a mail or a tweet.

Calendar 2012

Merry Christmas and a Happy & Prosperous New Year 2012

Cheers,

Monish

The Pink City!

2011-10-02T14:49:00.001+05:30

the pInk cIty

A short photo essay of Jaipur, spent less than half a day in Jaipur.

It is October 2nd today - “Earth provides enough to satisfy every man's need, but not every man's greed” ~ Mahatma Gandhi

Forts, Palaces, Architecture History

Janmashtami Celebrations

Folklore

Abstract

Panorama (74 megapixel 18480 x 4004)

Moi gracing the pInk cIty

Video - Folklore

Photo Slide Set

Monish Matthias

Agumbe - Rainforest Rendezvous Recurs – II

2011-09-16T11:16:00.001+05:30

Godfather, Terminator, Toy Story, Bourne Supremacy, Evil Dead, Harry Potter, Agumbe Rainforest Rendezvous Recurs - what's common in this list?? All have successful sequels to their name and the sequels have been more engrossing than ever before.

As part of fulfilling my vows to the nature god I had planned another pilgrimage trip to the Agumbe rainforest to be in the company of the members of the rainforest dynasty.
The rainforest welcomes you in a rather bizarre manner. You will have to shut your vehicle windows about 30 minutes as your near the periphery of the rainforest as a steady drizzle starts. You will start sniffing & gathering a rather new scent which is nothing but the dampness and the high moisture content in the air. As I got down in the Agumbe bus stand, a wave of nostalgia and unique sense of pride engulfed me..the feeling of an elite privileged class - to be one of the lucky select few to witness the beauties, mysteries and mystique of a rainforest personally and repeatedly.

The rainforest deity does a basic check to verify if you are an ardent devotee. She doesn't want wanderers given the same treatment that is being meted and doled out in the cities. As you walk to the Agumbe Rainforest Research Center, you will be tested with strong bursts of rain, persistent howling winds and then the leech army takes over, the slushy marshy terrain will try to discourage you. The faking devotee will back out at this point or make mental notes to never ever even sleep with his / her head in this direction. If you pass the basic check the rain becomes a massage shower, the winds shape into an orchestra, the leech army starts getting non intrusive and you treat them like your hair ends. You take to the slushy marshy like an imported SUV. Yes you guessed right I passed the test with flying colors and I was inducted into the roll call of the friends of the rainforest.

Day One
Day one started rather on a sad note, there was vegetable UPMA for breakfast, for the uninitiated that's an araldite like paste with few cut vegetables thrown in to adorn the mess and give the porridge look alike some respect. After thindi we armed ourselves with rain jackets, rain ponchos, shooting gear - an assortment of camera bodies and lenses and me with my floaters marched out of the base camp in search of reptiles (preferably snakes), insects, frogs and toads. We started off doing an area survey of the base camp where we hit upon an assortment of snails, dew covered moss sprouts and yes we did see my favorite frog the Indian bull frog (Tigrina) - love the patterns and the various reflections found in the eye of the frog. As we were scouting the area we received a call that some one had spotted a Vine Snake - the elegant well behaved snake. It was raining quite heavily and it was time to test the weather sealed claims from canon for the 7D, took the bazooka with the trusted 100 mm bomber and shot a few sensor imprints. This particular snake had few abscesses on its body, again loved the rain shots and the pattern found on the snakes skin.

Water Droplet Jewels

Dead Leaf!

Tigrina / Indian Bull Frog Series

Rainy Conditions which the camera (and me) braved

Green Vine Snake Series

More details & photographs of the vine snake -
http://www.wow-wonderworks.blogspot.com/2011/02/national-geographic-daily-dozen-agumbe.html

We then continued the walk towards a stream, let us name it the Golden Stream of Agumbe. The entire rainforest had thousands of streams, many more still undiscovered & teeming. We can walk through a flowing stream to reach this water fall but we didn't have that wish fulfilled as it had been raining non stop for the last few days and the currents were quite high. Shooting in the dark rainforests is always a challenge. With the weather conditions and the dense canopies, you fiddle around with the aperture / shutter speed / ISO in search of the perfect focus and a good shot. While the majority of the group were stuck with the agenda of the doing the waterfall stream to death, I for one being lazy to change my macro bomber to a wide angle bomber decided to wander off in the other direction. It is such a different experience while in the rainforests that you can actually hear your heart beat. The quote silence is golden might have had its origin in some rainforest. I spotted a damselfly and tried being its companion for more than 5 minutes, I guess it took a liking to me as it kept coming back to a twig close to me (high hopes!!).

Rain in the Rainforest (what else?)

Golden Stream

Water the Elixir (pls conserve)

A mixed platter

Lunch time bought some respite for our weary legs and hands that were handling the bazooka and the bombers. After a nice meal we decided to walk for about 2 kms before driving to Kundadri Valley / Peak. We again explored, examined a few exhibits of the rainforest and shot a few. I loved the tree crab which was playing peek a boo with us coming out, and running back in if we stared at it. We spent about 60 minutes shooting the peak and the panorama that was witnessed. We finally got to see the pill bug. Another super action scene that we witnessed was the attack of a live earthworm (along with the attack of a live centipede). The earthworm was about 25 cm long and there were about 60-70 black ants, they had cut the earthworm into 3 parts 2 parts measuring 3-4 cm and the remaining part would have measured about 15 cm. The ants were attacking the live earthworm and carrying it off to their burrow. Every 5 minutes the earth worm would regain its composure and some strength and try hard to wriggle and shake off all the ants, the ants would back off and attack again in a few seconds. We watched this for about 15 minutes and finally left knowing that the ants would have a good source of protein stored away for the winters. We drove down to the sunset point which was engulfed in fog but yes we got to munch on some tasty melaga bajji's (Chilly Savories). We stopped at the main store of the town to buy some rare papads (jack fruit papads - ready to eat variety) and cashews.

Crab Bungalow

Peek a Boo

Crab

Calotes sp.

Heavy Camouflage

Black Ant Attack

Pill Millipede

Video of the old pill bug[2010]

Kundadri Peak Series

Kundadri Peak View - A 65 megapixel picture stitched with about 9 different shots. The image size is 17930 x 3619. [zoom & zoom]

Video of the Kundadri Peak - Mist + Winds Howling

We had dinner at around 7:30pm. The base camp runs on solar and water energy. They have solar panels and a turbine generating power and storing it in batteries. Hence the research station is adorned with led lights which glimmer like stars and give out just enough light and consume almost nothing. After dinner we started for the night walk, again fully armed we left. We had Amogh and Vineith (a Naturalist from central India) to lead us. My sighting skills would have made an owl lower its hood in shame. It made me wonder if I was perhaps a nocturnal creature. We / I spotted a stick insect, several forest lizards, raspy cricket, a healthy green vine snake, a blue eyed prince frog (Blue eyed bush frog) [Philautus neelanethrus] giving out its legendary croak - treek tink-tink-tink to seek a mate and yes we did see it with its sac full but as soon as it realized it had uninvited visitors it threw a fit and stopped croaking. We saw this awesome lizard (similar to a software engineer on his bean bag) completely chilling out on the last twig of a tree, clutching the tree and sleeping. We then spotted the cat snake. It has a superb coiled pose before it strikes. A beautiful species (yet to ID it, looks like either a ceylon or beddome's variety). We called it a night after approximately 2 hours of the walk. We returned to the base camp and we all retired to the tents thinking all the adventure has ended. We cleared ourselves and entered the tent to discover both the zips of the tent door were broken and there was no way to zip up ourselves from the unknown surprises that the rainforest could spring up. I wore my thinking hat and went out into the jungle and started bringing back stones to weight the base of the tent down so that nothing can enter from the bottom. We then tried sleeping in a 50% open tent, at around 2:30 my tent mate and me woke up to strange crawling feeling on us, we discovered a host of leeches crawling on us, we played another round of carrom, tonking them out of the tent at high speeds, they must have felt like in a roller coaster.

Blue Eyed Prince

Mid Air Siesta

Cat Snake

Day Two

The second day started on a good note. The breakfast spread was kadambuttu (rice balls a coorgi / kodagu speciality) with dhall, chutney and Mangalore buns with nice hill plantains as the dessert. We were off to Yogigundi waterfalls. It has a nice 1-2 km trail off the beaten track to reach the waterfalls. You can spend hours shooting the waterfalls and the small little surprises that are lined up along the trail.

Ferns, Mushrooms, Fungi etc

Yogigundi Waterfall Series

After a small tiff with few visitors who were drinking and littering the place, we were to have a bonanza of snakes. We were driving down a slope with Gowri at the wheel while suddenly he yelled "shit guess we killed a snake". He braked abruptly and we all jumped out of the jeep, only to realise that the jeep though in gear continued moving due to the steep slope. Gowri had to jump back and stop the jeep properly and we started scouting the area and we found a juvenile Hill Keelback, a rather rare find. It was beautiful and we spent few minutes recording details of this species. Within a km we spotted a rather healthy rat snake with a yellowish tinge on the underbody. A few of us decided to walk from the village to the research camp and we spent hours walking peacefully and carefully exploring and watching things. We spotted the checkered keelback in the same area where we had spotted it yesterday. It was underwater with its head above water resting on a bush’s roots, giving an impression that it was enjoying a sauna in the snakes world. We reached rather late around 3.00 pm, when others had finished their lunch and were getting ready for another stroll. We had a working lunch, and enjoyed chatting with Siddharth, the field director of ARRS. Nice to meet dynamic people and the faith returns that nature, conservation and wildlife still have a hope.

The rare hill keelback

PICS
We then started off to a nearby stream, just about 10 minutes from the camp. We kept hearing calls of the hornbill, the Malabar grey hornbill and suddenly we heard a helicopter take off, whoosh, whoosh, whooooosh whoooooosh, and as we looked up we saw two hornbills fly above us to a tree high up the canopy. Another nice spotting was the cicada. I have always heard the high pitched drone from the drum like organ of the male, have also seen the moult but have never seen the insect as they are usually high up on the trees. Spent lots of time in the stream just chilling and wetting our legs and just before we leaving spotted a huge green forest calotes.

First Sighting of a Cicada

I will flow

Green Forest Calotes

Returned to the base camp and realized rather sadly that it was time to wind up and that the pilgrimage to the rainforest deity has actually ended. With a heavy heart and a stronger resolve to return again faster and longer we boarded the bus to return to Bangalore. A special thanks to Amogh, Gowri, ARRS and yes the rainforest deity for accommodating us. Thank you Anu for editing and correcting the several errors in the article. Also a mighty thanks to my dad for changing his 2 day visit to meet us at Bangalore just so that I may make it to Agumbe, thanks and I love you appa.

Agumbe in 2010 - http://www.wow-wonderworks.blogspot.com/2010/09/agumbe-rainforest-expedition.html

Thank You Amogh & Gowri

The wildest animal - moi

THE FRAGILE RAINFOREST - PLEASE DON'T BREAK IT!

Pictures Slideshow - Full Set

Day 1

Day 2

Cheers,

Monish Matthias

Jungle Lodges Features Monish Matthias

2011-07-11T15:13:00.001+05:30

http://www.junglelodges.blogspot.com/2011/07/bandipur-unplanned-getaway-1.html

Lucky to have Jungle Lodges feature me in their blog and showcase few photographs shot in Bandipur during April this year 2011.

Article - 1

Article - 2

http://www.junglelodges.blogspot.com/2011/07/bandipur-unplanned-getaway-2.html

The original article with videos on my blog

http://www.wow-wonderworks.blogspot.com/2011/05/bandipur-unplanned-getaway.html

Have a look and do share your comments,

Cheers,

Monish

Biligiriranga Hills a.k.a BR Hills – 2 Wild Days

2011-07-01T11:52:00.001+05:30

BR Hills – BR like the br tag in html which indicates break in line, here also there was a break to our lives, totally in the middle of the forests, oblivious to the existence of humans and their development, staying in log huts in a property without fences. 32 kms (via the Kannakapura route) of supreme driving in forest trails takes you to the gates of JLR K. Gudi. Another salient point of BR hills being it is at the confluence of the Western Ghats and Eastern Ghats and hence has both their flora,fauna and wildlife – double damakka to be precise. Anu & me had a superb timeout with my sister and CG thanks to their birthday gift @ JLR, couldn’t have asked for a wiser gift. Many first time sightings for me, I will not tell it out now, just glance through the photographs. A short selection of my favorite pictures are displayed here, while the entire set is available as a slideshow at the bottom of the post. I really loved the picture collection of this trip and hence didn’t want to distract you by writing too much :P

Birds

Brown Fish Owl

They have a decently small habitat range, we visited these guys over a period of 3 days and they were in an range of 100-200 meters from the same spot close to a small pond, fishes beware.

Brown Fish Owl - flight collage

Jungle Owlet

Yellow Footed Green Pigeon

Group of Yellow Footed Green Pigeons at a salt marsh

One of my Favorites - Hoopoe

Serpent Eagle

White Cheeked Barbet

Animals

Spotted Deer

Sambar Eating

Elusive and Shy Barking Deer

Wild Boar and its Piglets

Piglets Playing

Majestic Tiger - A Lifer

Tiger in its habitat

Plants, Trees

Cactus with lots of sprouts

Snake Vine Plant

Blue Skies and a Dried Tree

JigSaw pieces - Corcodile Bark Tree

Insects

Southern Bird Wing [flight] - one of the largest butterflies

Spider with its egg

Crab Spider

Wonders of the Insect Kingdom

Caterpillar with Weapons

Twin Tailed Spider

Debris Spider

Reptiles

Flying Lizard / Flying Draco

Garden Lizard

Baby Green Keelback - Loved seeing it

Landscape

Layers of Vegetation & Peaks

BR Hills

A lake bang in the middle of the forest

4 in 1 - 2 Terrapins, 1 Kingfisher, 1 Pond Heron

Portraiture

Sages

Kids - Living in villages close to the forests

Anu & Me

Monica & CG

Abstract

Forest Trail

Gaur / Bison remains after a meal by the Big Cat

Ripples

Leftovers after a bug's breakfast

What we are doing to the forests - edited

Thank You JLR

Photograph Set

Video

The mystical mist and rain close to the log huts at JLR in BR Hills.

Do pass on your comments and critique liberally.

Cheers,

Monish Matthias

Kemmanagundi – Explore, Nature, Trek & Cleanup

2011-06-17T11:52:00.001+05:30

http://vanamitra.org/ | http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vanamitra-Conserving-Indias-Wildlife/177282218997090

A trip to explore, watch & feel nature, trek and clean up human irresponsibility's. We (Anu, My Sister, CG) decided to sign up for a nature trip to Kemmanagundi led by naturalists Suresh and Jaishankar from Vanamitra.

Vanamitra, is a Non-Governmental Organization for Nature Conservation with special focus on Wildlife Issues across the state of Karnataka, was established by 3 young Wildlife Conservationists who have been working relentlessly for 9 years supporting various other NGOs. More - http://vanamitra.org/about/

We left by one of the smallest buses I have ever seen, comfortable nevertheless, Anu and me occupied the most comfortable seats of the bus, the last row sigh! We had a sleepy & bumpy ride and reached Kemmanagundi by 7. We stayed at the forest officers bungalow, a nice neat place bang in the middle of the forests.

Forest Officers Bungalow

Guard Dog!

Time for a concise write-up of the things we did and a short description of the photographs

Day 1:

> A 16 KM trek to a waterfall, fairly uninspiring locales along the trek, we had a forest guard for company. A notable sweet incident was from the start of the trek a group of 4-5 stray dogs started following us, they gave us superb company for 16 KM's and trekked with us, shared our lunch, slept for a while and followed us back, man's best friend proved it again.

> Nice sightings of a giant dragonfly, still not identified.

> We had to walk across beautiful streams, fun to soak our tired legs in the cold water.

> Major clean-up of the area close to the waterfalls, we collected close to 11-12 huge bags of garbage. We also educated quite a few visitors not to litter.

> Tired and we started the trek back, midway the thunders started and it sounded as if an army of angry lions were on the loose, the lightening slowly starting catching up to its personal best and lit the entire arena like a dance floor and slowly the entire area was looking menacing with dark clouds staring at us. Anu and me were tired and the destination just didn't seem to come.

> We had a discussion of important environmental issues at a small restaurant which according to me was a little out of place since we were all drenched to the bone and were dead tired.

> Dinner was done with candle lights and then till midnight we had a exhibition of superb performances by the fire flies.

> Presentation of wildlife conservation, current poaching practices and their conservation and rescue operations, was really nice and inspirational.

Trek - Difficulty Level

Wonders in Colors

Mountain Ranges under Wrap

Giant Helicopter

Flow of Life

Fight For Green

Day 2:

> A 6 KM trek to a hill peak called Z point, superb mountainous path with nice small waterfalls on the way.

> The view from the top is awesome.

> Good Sightings of few endemic birds and butterflies. My Butterfly collection got two new additions, Peacock Pancy & Common Bluebottle

> Had a cool leech bite that bled for nearly 50+ hours, guess the guy had loads of Hirudin in its system.

People Trekking

Tiger Pug Mark (Fresh)

Peaks of Kemmanagundi

Peaks of Kemmanagundi - 1

Kings Seat

Common Bluebottle

Holy Sprinklings

Photographs Set

Video of Kemmanagundi Z Point

On a photographic front realized that the mid day sun was a photographers worst enemy, the sky without clouds are all looking washed out.

Reached home by 1:00 AM and man never slept better before.

The next trip report is BR Hills, where I have had some life time sightings, waiting to process them asap.

Cheers,

Monish

Bandipur – Unplanned Getaway

2011-05-31T12:43:00.001+05:30

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bandipur_National_Park

Videos & Picture Slideshows are at the end of the article.

The trip to Bandipur jungle lodges holds a record that would be hard to beat. The record being the fastest planned trip but luck also played its own part. Friday evening close to 3:00 PM just called JLR to ask if there were any rooms available for the weekend, my mind was already playing their reply - Sir, Sorry no vacancies but wasn't I surprised when I heard that one room was available. Five minutes later the room was blocked and the payment was made. I was thoroughly excited as it was my first time to JLR Bandipur and to add to the excitement it was the first long trip with the Toyota Etios which was a few weeks old. Thanks to Rahul for letting me borrow his 70-300 Tamron lens. The car tank was filled and early morning at about 5:30 we set off. We had about 260 KM's to cover.

More Info

http://www.junglelodges.com/

Drive on the NICE road was exciting while the Mysore road was sedate and we were occasionally racing. The car was a pleasure to drive, but when we touched 140 we were sure we were going to take-off. Guess it was two reasons, getting used to the car and the car weighing just 950 kgs. After a big breakfast close to the Mysore Palace we had a rather boring, watchful drive as the Nanjangudu road is two lane and passes through loads of fields and small villages.

The first Tiger Spotting (a superb painting at JLR)

We reached and were awed by the big JLR property, I have seen & been to the Galibore property hence not used to luxury or extravaganza at JLR properties. This one was huge, CLEAN and well maintained. Anu just loved the swings and was lazing away to glory. Occasionally I was given the huge responsibility of giving some impetus to the swing, didn't I love the job :) [can we censor this in the final version]. After a wholesome meal of veggies, yes it was still lent and boy was I feeling down. After a power nap (yes in the Corporate World we call laziness and a plain afternoon siesta - power Nap, blame it on the terminology driven madness) we got ready for the evening safari.

Yellow

Aged Yet Kicking

Intricate Design

Texture

Adrenalin flowing we entered the Bandipur Forest Reserve Area, it was my first in Bandipur, while it was Anu's first in the forests. She was really wary of the open design of the jeep and kept asking the naturalist guide of its worthiness during a Tiger / Leopard attack and when she was reassured she became wary in the case of an elephant attack. We had some regulars in the jeep and an uncle who was cradling his 200-400 VRII lens which would have made any new mom ashamed of her efforts, they were very warm and we got chatty soon.

The Bandipur forest gave us a good welcome with about 50 spotted deers close to the entrance.

Pictures speak a 1000 words, though I could speak more, lets save you the trouble.

Evening safari

Shy & Elusive

Family Bonds

Lets Monkey Around

God Save the humans!

Curious

Forest and its inhabitants

Birds

Piercing Look

Perched

Red Wattled Lapwing

Robin

Streak Throated Woodpecker - For the Future

Peacock Series

We returned with such wonderful experiences and memory and Anu & me were continuously sharing tales of the trip. We had a Power wash [I made this up - you guessed right], where you have to clean yourself in under 120 seconds. We went and watched the movie and were heartbroken seeing the plight of the majestic tigers at the hands of the humans. If we can't save our national animal, what can we save?

The link is here - http://www.truthabouttigers.org/home/

Watch the video - http://www.truthabouttigers.org/home/?page_id=7

http://www.youtube.com/truthabouttigers

We then had a decent dinner, again the fried chicken was tempting but it was supposed to be a lean period. Nice cozy rooms. Our room was called Gaur.

Our Room

Early morning weary eyed we got ready for the safari and had a nice time except that we decided to get a little adventurous and we were seated / standing in the back of a open jee. By the time we returned we were covered in dry sand and mud. First attempt of tasting mud and storing some in my ears.

Again these are few pictures that I liked.

Back at the lodge, a much needed shower and we were ready to hit the roads back to Bangalore. A very pleasant drive expect for a KL driver who decided tiny two lane bridges are really meant for racing and ticked me off. A wonderful Mangalorean meal at Kamat and five hours in all we were at the other border of Bangalore - East Bangalore. A trip not planned but which ended well. I really missed a 100-400 canon lens hopefully will be renting one from Toehold for the next trip. Till then lets chill.

Pictures

Videos

Video 1 - Streak Throated Woodpecker – Courtship

Music Credit - Blue night By Michael learns to rock | Breakaway By Kelly Clarkson from "Princess Diaries" | Higher by Creed

Video 2 - Peacock Dance

Video 3 - Peacock Dance - Abridged Version

Fighters Bombers Supersonic Jets

2011-05-04T15:54:00.001+05:30

Made it a point to attend the Aero Show 2011 held in Bangalore. Was truly handicapped by the afternoon ‘above the head sun’ proving to be a tough light assistant. Was delighted to see the various countries showing off their machines and trying hard to win the bid for the upgrade of Indian Air Force’s Fighter Jets contract.

Witnessed the Cheetah Helicopters, Peacock Helicopters, Euro Fighter typhoon (my fav), Sukhoi, F16, F18, SAAB Passenger Jet, Sukhoi Passenger Jet, Red Bulls, Rafale.

The biggest cheer was for TEJAS. It is the World's smallest, single seater, multi role, combat fighter jet , which was included in the IAF on 10th January 2011. TEJAS is India's first fighter jet to be built indigenous at home. The research and development on the Light Combat Aircraft (LCA) is supposed to have began a decade ago. Some issues were some foreign countries refused to share technology.

The latest news that I read a few days back was that the entire contract was given to European companies and not to the Americans causing a strain in the defense and economic relations – link

Coming back, have a look at the photographs, and yes please remember I was shooting with a 135 mm lens which was GROSSLY inadequate.

Vroom, zoom, zip till the next set of photographs.

Lalbagh Flower Show - An annual ritual!

2011-03-28T10:47:00.001+05:30

Lal Bagh Botanical Garden, translated literally in to English as; "The Red Garden", is a well known botanical garden in Bangalore, India The garden was commissioned by the ruler of Mysore, Hyder Ali. It has a famous glass house which hosts yearly flower show. It also has an aquarium and a lake, and is one of the tourist attractions in Bangalore.

More info - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lal_Bagh

I just love going to the Lalbagh flower show held on Republic Day every year in Bangalore, it is not only about fancy exotic flowers arranged well in eye catching patterns, it is also for the crowd, the visitors milling around, the unusual moments, short eats and the whole aura around the place. I always try to get in early so that the butterflies are out in the slightly cooler period and the crowd is at its minimum, you can shoot with much hindrance.

The flickr set – here / http://www.flickr.com/photos/minmaxmim/sets/72157626356735684/

Till the next report, signing off!

~Monish Matthias

Snakes, & the Love Story

2011-02-17T11:41:00.001+05:30

View only the pictures & videos (The article only has a snapshot of the entire set of pictures. The full collection is available in the slideshow.)

Let’s start with a test, prepare yourself mentally to think of nothing else but the test that is to come. What are the first five things that come to your mind when you think of a snake? You have 5 seconds, 5.4.3.2.1.0 time’s up. Well the most common five thoughts are
a) Poisonous / Venomous
b) Safety / Life Threatening
c) Slimy / Dangerous
d) Kill it / Search for a stick
e) Hatred and Fear

By the way there is a big difference between Poison & Venom, poison works when ingested and venom works when injected.

Well most of these common thoughts are hard wired in every one's brain because of stories, myths and scary movies that one has heard, seen and carried across generations.

Well the five thoughts that don’t come to us are
a) Not all snakes are Venomous. In fact India has just a few varieties of venomous snakes. The Cobra (King and Spectacled), the Common Krait, the Russels Viper and the Saw Scaled Viper are known as the big four. Common Krait is one of the deadliest Indian snakes. It is known to be 15 times more venomous than the cobra. There are a large number of non venomous snakes such as rat snakes, keelbacks, and vine snakes.
b) As Gerry Martin points out there is no snake that is really aggressive. They are just moderately defensive or very defensive and their defense mechanism is to bite, attack or hiss to chase you away. In fact if you watch the documentary by Rom Whitaker ‘One Million Bites’ he shows the Cobra which bites or tries to bite a person but does not even try injecting venom in the first try. It just hisses and springs forward to scare the person / attacker / intruder away. Gowri Shankar from the Agumbe Rainforest Research Center who heads the King Cobra research program once said that King Cobras are such intelligent snakes that when they know that it is a human they attack by a dry bite or mock bite and don’t even waste their venom as they know that humans of that size are just not their prey and they could use their venom better. Hmm..resource management.
c) They are a very important link in our ecosystem saving crops from rodents, saving us from disease outbreaks (via rodent control) and some snakes are known to devour the mosquito larvae’s found in water.
d) If you let it go, most probably it will move out of your way and go into its ecosystem.
e) We are continuously intruding into its space in terms of habitat destruction and yet we expect them to disappear magically away from us. We must learn to co-exist.

For the last two years I have been having this peculiar interest to see a lot of snakes and photograph them but never thought of the aspect of handling snakes. This lead me to see a decent number of snakes in the last 8 months: 2 rat snakes in JP Nagar, a 6 feet snake couldn’t identify it as a cobra or a rat snake, then the vine snake, worm snake (Leptotyphlops) at Agumbe when Amogavarsha had lead us on a rainforest photography expedition.

I had been tracking Gerry Martin’s blog with an intent to enroll for the next herpetology workshop, having missed a couple of them earlier. January 2011 came and up came a posting online that the herpetology workshop was scheduled during Feb 2011 4th - 6th. I instantly enrolled and was waiting eagerly for D day.

Kits packed, batteries charged, the mind open to take in tons of experiences. We car pooled to Hunsur. We stopped for breakfast, coffee and in less than 4 hours we were at Gerry Martin’s farm. A nice lush green farm sharing the boundary with the banks of a super sexy lake-Devikere. The farm has lots of rabbits, turkey, hens, guinea pigs, cows, dogs, ducks etc. We were about 12+ participants and our ages varied in the range from 12 - 28. We were given a short briefing session and then we left for our luxury suites. Yup loved the suites nice elevated open sided shacks under the coconut trees, sometimes the bare basic comforts are more luxurious than the overrated star hotels. There were like 4 dorms one for the guys, one for the ladies and one was taken by Gerry, Soham and Suresh, and yes one was empty. Gerry Martin really doesn’t need an intro to the audience reading this article (http://www.gerrymartin.in/ ) Soham is the other professional naturalist who specializes in Herpetology and Reptile Knowledge Enrichment Program (yes he taught crocs - http://wildinfo.blogspot.com/ ) and Suresh is a proud member from the Irula Tribe, the tribe which has specialized in tracking (killing them before the ban on killing snakes) snakes generation after generation.

A Black Bumble Bee

We gathered at the dining cum conference area where we discussed few techniques of area survey like the Visual Search and the Refuge Search. We decided to use both kinds of search and we proceeded towards the mango trees section where there were enough dried leaves which would aid us if there were any movements. We used the Kestrel Equipment to record air temperature, wind speed and humidity before the search and also recorded all the above whenever we found an insect, snake etc. We spread out and each one with our survey sheets started hovering, wandering about. I was particularly interested in a couple of butterflies and damselflies and set out chasing them for a shot; in fact a particular yellow damselfly tested my patience and my flexibility to shoot him.

The Damselfly who tested my agility

Common Wanderer Butterfly

We then saw a few hoppers, a worm snake, a garden lizard, few geckos and then a magical sight - a tree cricket shedding skin and just moving out of its old skin. It was hanging on to its old skin wondering whether to let go of the coat that served it well.

Tree Cricket Shedding

Gerry and Soham were educating all of us and especially the younger participants on several aspects of insect tracking, wild protocols etc. Suresh was intent on searching and getting his hands on a snake. He used his well tuned instincts to dig and search but a snake just eluded us in the morning. We went back to our dug out and started sharing notes and tales. Lunch was served and wow I fell in love with the dishes, lots of veggie dishes, lots of meat - chicken and my favorite pork. Attacked the meal with great gusto after all the stretching that the small insects had subjected me to. Suddenly Suresh comes running to say that he might have a positive lead, we proceed to a termite hill and we see newly shed snake skin, Gerry examines it and says it is a cobra’s skin and the snake could be 3-4 years old. Suresh starts digging in a very organized, planned manner and he enters the private quarters of the termites. Inside the mount we see more bits of snake skin. After about 20 excited minutes the operation was a failure.The snake has shed its skin and narrowly escaped from us. We all walk back sad but with an extra vengeance to track them soon.

Snake Skin

Late afternoon we decide to continue our survey on the other side of the farm starting from the lake side to the interiors of the farm. We see a Brahminy Skink, few insects and we kept watching the bar headed geese which are migratory birds and have settled on the lake. We kept walking and Suresh starts digging up a place which looks as normal as a normal place. After 15 minutes of persistent digging he proudly declares that there is a fellow inside. He uses his instincts, few techniques such as the extent of the mud being rolled by the cylindrical body of the snake, etc. He pulled out a rat snake, a rather slender handsome fellow who was about 4 feet long. He was holding the snake and trying to soothe its nerves as a minute before it was in its burrow deep inside and now was in a human’s hand. After soothing the snake we took turns handling the snake and holding him, me being a first timer had a few anxious minutes before calming down. There were several younger people (kids if I may say) in the group who loved to hold the snake like a common man would pet a teddy bear or a Pomeranian dog. It was heartening to see young children drive away generation old myths and move ahead to learn and conserve wildlife. Gerry didn’t want to tax the snake for a very long time and he bagged him soon after.

Rat Snake scanning the environment

We then returned back and had our evening Tiffin, more snacks yummy to be specific and then we were on our own for the next few hours. I decided I would spend it in solitude by the lakeside watching the sun go down, the birds fly past and just day dream. I loved it, I was sitting by the lake for about 45 minutes with my camera and literally saw the sun turn different shades, saw various birds flying back home. These pictures would complete the story.

Bird Traffic

By the Reeds

Life by the Lake Side

By 6ish after a shower we were back in our dug out and we had a 1 - 1.5 hour session by Soham on Snake Taxonomy. We were surprised to see the scientific side of the herpetology. We learned about the different kinds of snake scales, about how one identifies the species via a combination of its colors, patterns, scale counts and the arrangement & number of scales on the snake. There was a bit of interesting mathematics X:Y:Z axis to the scale count.

Snake Taxonomy

Then we had a presentation of why this is important and I was surprised to see there are loads of snakes which are almost similar looking and can be only differentiated via taxonomy.

Dinner was served at around 9, a completely new menu and was really nice and homely. We then took our torches and started getting ready for the night survey....

We started the walk and went searching for the checkered keelback and usually on a normal night one spots at least 5-6 of them, but to our bad luck we spotted none. Disappointed we ventured further into the fields and we saw few shrews, field mice (sundalli) and few skinks. We started walking back with a rather heavy heart and Gerry was leading the walk followed by Tavvoz and behind him was me. Tavvoz suddenly jumped off the ground and pointed to something slithering in the field a few feet from him. It was the majestic Russels Viper, whoa what a catch.
Gerry immediately took charge and cordoned off the area and called for the snake bag and his stick. The snake had coiled by then and was watching with great intent to check if someone would dare mess with it. Gerry in less than 15 seconds put the snake into the bag and coiled the bag shut. He was explaining later that with such express fast venomous snakes the lesser time you handle the snake the safer you are.
We walked back with the best rescue of the day.
Night came and after having slept for less than 2 hours the previous night I fell asleep in my suite to the whistling sound of the coconut leaves and the chill air-conditioned air that nature had to provide. You would have to believe it when I say we even had our own night lamp, the moon light streaking through the canopy cover.

Day 2

Taavoz and Maria the two young experienced naturalists had woken up at 5:00 and had left with Gerry to get few rescued snakes from Mysore which were to be analyzed, studied, few parameters recorded and then relocated to suitable locations.

We all had a quick shower and were up and ready by 7.00. I went for an hour of birding and the lack of zoom lens proved a worry. Came back and devoured yummy poori’s and were all set for the analysis and study of few snakes before they were relocated. We started off with the Rat Snakes, we handled one of the largest of the snakes we had. We started filling up the Snake Morphometric and Scalation Data Sheet. We had to fill details like date of capture, time, place, tail length, total length, weight, sex, scale rows, anal scale, scales keeled, pupil and the head scale details.

The sex is determined by inserting an instrument into the anal section. This was done by Soham and Gerry. We went ahead and recorded all the above details. Occasionally the snake would really want to get back but at other times it was really happy to be with us..ever heard of pet snakes :P. After about 1-2 hours of this study, we started exploring the micro habitat in and around the farm to release these snakes. Gerry burst the bubble for many of us when he said most of the rescued / relocated snakes don’t survive. They are well adapted to the location they were in and when let out in new places they are almost incapable of most common activities and they either fall prey or die. But the good aspect in this particular rescue and relocation was that there were a few young snakes which meant they could easily re-adapt at least better than the oldies. Gerry also advised that this is exactly why we must not instantly relocate a snake from residential areas. Most of the times if you give it some time it will vanish from your sight into its ecosystem. Then most of us released them and were amazed with the speed they went away and the way they swam across the lake / small pools to go as far away from us as they could. They are superb swimmers.
We also released a Checkered Keelback close to the lake, the place that it loves.
Having bid farewell to our wild friends we staggered back with a lonely feeling but knowing they are away where they belong.

Viewing the world around

Just Love the Innocent Look

Rat Snake Slithering Away After Release

Another superb lunch beckoned us, more poultry and beef called out to us and many were dismayed that the local turkey wasn’t on the table; many had a grudge with the attention seeking turkey that would come near everyone and start screaming in its shrill voice. It loved attention from all of us.

We had a nice mid day siesta and were back at 3:00 sharp with long pants and shoes; we were scheduled to have a meeting with the Naja Naja. Having never seen the spectacled cobra up close, I was all but excited. Gerry showed us how to treat the cobra and relocate it. We practiced the pipe - hole method where we carry the snake with the stick and by its tail and guide it to the pipe with leads to the dark insides of the snake bag. I was superbly scared and at the same time amazed by one particular cobra which was extremely defensive, he was continuously hissing and trying to mock a bite. These were to be relocated at a more suitable place the next day as too many snakes relocated at the same place would lead to major imbalances in the existing ecosystem.

Naja Naja

Evening came and like the previous day I spend about 40 minutes sitting on the banks of the lake watching the sun go down and the birds fly past. I just love sitting there doing nothing and staring blankly.

Patterns

End of a Day's Work

Late evening we watched the awesome documentary called ‘One Million Bites’. Rom Whitaker doing a huge study of the way the snakes strike people in an indoor setup with a super advanced camera which shoots at 7000 fps - frames per second...whoa. Also he travels far and wide across India collecting venom samples from various species in an attempt to check if his labs can succeed in creating a universal synthetic anti-venom - a noble path breaking effort indeed. The snake bite distribution was roughly calculated to be 50% Russels Viper
30% Cobra, remaining Vipers, Kraits. During the movie none of us moved an inch nor even did we breathe hard; the movie was so very captivating.

Another fulfilling meal and we were off for the night survey and we had to release the Russels Viper somewhere close to the place we had found him. The night survey proved as a good exercise before sleep, we met a few shrews, few mice. Gerry released the Russels Viper and we saw him slither away into a dense vegetation area after which we lost him. We walked back and slowly retired to sleep. Despite the luxury suite and the nature’s comforts I couldn’t sleep for a long time, anything that stirred or a fly that sat on me reminded me of the snakes and I would get up.

The Russels Viper Release (note the lovely skin pattern)

Day 3
We started by 6:30 and we trained on the aspects of using the snake bagger, the art of holding it, helping the snake get in and then twirl it and close it.

After chow chow bath, yup that was the dish for breakfast, I tried my hand at Gerry’s zoom lens the Sigma lens, and it was a pretty neat lens given the price. We bid a good farewell to Gerry who had to return early to Bangalore. We then played few games like Bulldog, Dog and the Bone. I was good at both games, relived my childhood days for a little while. Then we shot few pictures of the Cobra which was getting ready for a release. The people at the farm called out for us saying there is a snake close to the washroom and our group rushed there and one of the participants checked and verified it was a checkered keelback and it was rescued and relocated. After few hours of lazing, discussing and sharing few photography tricks we decided to shut shop and packed our bags. Had lunch, bid farewell to Soham and the other participants and we returned to Bangalore in the car with Neeraj.

The Spectacled Cobra With its Head High

The Spectacled Cobra a.k.a Naja Naja

Checkered Keelback

Back home felt terrible to be away from the natural setting of a farm and away from the snakes, guess it will take a couple of days and the Bangalore traffic to make me get over the happy hangover.

Three interesting wildlife incidents that we saw / experienced,

1) Brahminy Kite being mobbed by Common Crows - I kept seeing a Brahminy kite being mobbed by 1 - 2 crows, they were continuously pecking and attacking the kite, disturbing it from settling down for a hunt. Don’t understand if the mobbing behavior was due to the crows nesting area or if the crow was aiming for the kites nest / young ones.

Brahminy Kite Mobbed By Common Crows

2) There was a happy coot family near the reeds in one corner of the lake - a father, mother and two young beautiful children. And when we have these we surely need a villain, the white majestic brahminy kite who was hungry and looking for some fast food. To the coots misfortune there were stuck in one corner of the lake where the reeds were at the lowest concentration and the sun would come out strongly in that direction.So they were being forced to go to the larger concentration of reeds. The white brahminy kite came swooping down attacking the coots, after about 6-8 minutes of intense war the fight was worth it. It griped a baby coot in a superb low flight attack and scoop. Poor parents fought valiantly but barely had a chance. After 30 minutes the small meal wasn’t enough and the kite came back again for the next baby. This time the coots decided enough was enough and gave it all it had. They tried protecting the baby under the wings and kept fighting with the kite which was swooping down. The coots screamed in a shrill note and flapped their wings and rise and attack the kite when it was in close distance during its swoop. Finally after 15 minutes the kite gave up and went back. At the end of the day it looks like the law of averages had worked, one baby coot given one baby coot saved. Hope among despair, the cycle and the pyramid of the wildlife ecosystem must go one irrespective of any one's feelings.

Attack of the Coots by the Brahminy Kite

3) A young participant told me to lick the butt / backside of the these red ants, while I was skeptical I wanted to try it. Picked one up tenderly and tasted the backside and it had a strong citrus taste. Try it!

And yes before I end I wanted to share the protocols of Snakebite Management.

Snake Bite Protocols
Of course I didn’t pen these down on my own, due credit must go to Gerry and his foundation and to Gowri Shankar from ARRS from whom I have learnt few aspects and sharing their advice as well.

Do remember snakes bite out of fear and in defense not out of choice. Studies show that most of the snake bite victims have troubled the snake or provoked it.

Type
There are two basic types of snake venom:
> Neurotoxic, which affects the nerves (venom of cobras and kraits).
> Haemotoxic, which affects blood, blood vessels and tissue (that of vipers).

General Symptoms
Fang Marks, Discoloration, Skin peeling off, Bleeding from the gums and wound, Drooping eyelids, Difficulty in speaking and breathing, Drowsiness.

Things NOT to do:
> Never try to suck out the venom
> Never make an incision
> Never go to traditional healers or try home remedies
> Never tie tourniquets or use ice
> Never clean out or tamper with the site of the bite
> Never try and catch the snake or kill it
> Don’t give sedatives to calm the patient
> Don’t let the patient run or get excited
> Don’t feed the victim food as there is a possibility of choking

Things to DO:
> Make sure the victim and others are at a safe distance from the snake and try to memorize its appearance
> Or even better try to take a photograph of the snake with your mobile camera (only if it is safe to take a photograph)
> Stay calm and in control, take charge of the situation and reassure the victim
> Remove watches, rings, bangles and anything else that could add to pressure or be constrictive if the area swells up
> Get to hospital as soon as possible
> Note the time of the bite and the progression of any symptoms
> Give the doctor a detailed description of the bite, the snake and its symptoms
> Anti snake venom serum is the only proven cure for venomous snakebite

As I learnt from Gerry’s workshop that about 50,000 people die of snake bite in India each year. Snake bite has been only recently categorized as a neglected disease. People who escape death might suffer from loss of limbs or life functions.

Snake Bite Prevention
> Prevention is better than cure
> Wear long pants and shoes while in the garden or amidst thick vegetation
> Take care while clearing dry leaves or clear areas in the field
> Use a torch at night
> Ensure solid waste is managed well in your garden

As Capt. Suresh, Gerry would say don’t be macho, if you see a snake do nothing let it go. Snake bite is painful, expensive and risky and yes it is NOT AT ALL COOL!

Thank You Gerry Martin for the great experience.

Snakes Set

Hunsur Set

Video of Devikere Lake

Links, Reference & Credit
http://thegerrymartinproject.blogspot.com/
http://www.gerrymartin.in/
http://pogirigowrishankar.wordpress.com/2010/11/02/snakes-snake-bites-first-aid/
http://captsuresh.com/topics/snakes/snake-photography-nature/learn-basics

Till the next trip report, signing off!

~Monish Matthias

National Geographic Daily Dozen - Agumbe Vine Snake

2011-02-13T19:25:00.001+05:30

What Exactly is the Nat Geo's - The Daily Dozen?
The explanation on their website says - "Check back weekdays to see the editor's selections. From the Daily Dozen, a selection of photos will be published monthly in National Geographic magazine."

I am sure there are tons of photographs that are submitted everyday under the 'your shot' category and the great editorial team goes through the photographs and have a dozen photographs finalized for each week of the month. I am really glad they selected a photograph of mine shot in August 2010 in Agumbe, very close to the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station (ARRS), it is a Green Vine Snake - Oxybelis fulgidus.

This photograph featured in the daily dozen of National Geographic for the week -3 of January 2010
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/your-shot/daily-dozen

So as I share the photograph I thought I must share a few facts collected from several sources on the web and offline.

> A vine snake is a reptile it is about 1.5-2 meters.
> A vine snake is a remarkably slender snake. It is almost the skinniest snake in the world.
> They lie amid the branches of forest trees, and are almost indistinguishable from the abundant creepers and vines.
> They have sharp rear fangs with mild venom. They are slow moving predators, but in the morning they are very active they snack mainly lizards (sometimes baby 'tiny' birds which are alone in the nest).
> Only two species of green snake exist, known commonly as the rough and the smooth green snake. Five subspecies of green snakes exist, and all are distinguishable by their characteristic bright green color that allows them to easily blend into grass and other vegetation, protecting them from predators and even human detection.
> They track prey using their tongues to detect scents of prey and can even capture prey flying through the air. Green snakes of both species hunt during daylight hours and rest at night.
> A vine snake can extend half of its body into midair when crossing a branch.
> Snake’s scales are made up of something called Keratin, which is the same thing that our fingernails are made from.
> Vine snakes are remarkable because they appear to have binocular vision.
>The green vine snake stays high on trees and looks down to the ground. When a mouse, lizard or nest is found the snake follows the prey a short distance and smells it carefully. If the snake is content with it, it bites into the head and lifts the prey 20–40 cm from the ground. With this the snakes prevents the prey from using its physical strength.
> The vine snake has two larger teeth at the back of its mouth; these teeth permit the toxic saliva to penetrate the wounds and to immobilize the prey. Then it is rapidly swallowed. Once the prey is completely in the snakes body, the vine snake searches for a resting place, usually in the highest point of a tree.
> They usually concentrate on a slow moving prey and concentrate on it for as much as 10 - 20 minutes and keep coming lower to the ground towards its prey and suddenly strikes and gets its prey.

Myth: Vine Snakes are commonly found. It is greatly feared and almost always killed when seen. In many areas, it is unwisely believed that Vine Snakes will nip at a person’s eyes and peck them out.

Cheers,

Monish

Furs Fins And Feathers Agumbe Article

2011-01-11T11:15:00.001+05:30

Very happy to say that few pictures from my Agumbe Rainforest Expedition with Amogh has been published in the Magazine -'Furs Fins & Feathers' January 2011 Edition. Few quotes attributed to me are also present. Attaching the scanned version of the article, hope you like it.

(The embedded PDF works well on Firefox, if you still face issues view it here)

The Original Article with complete set of photographs and video - here

PDF Document

The Link of the pdf download is here

The entire Agumbe Rainforest Trip Report with pictures and video is here

Happy New Year 2011.

The original Agumbe Article with complete set of photographs and video - here

Cheers,

Monish

IIMB-GMITE-2010

2010-12-22T10:05:00.001+05:30

View only the pictures

I am one of those guys who grew up with the notion that good pieces of literature / write ups are rare and it takes a full moon with streaks of light, free flow of liquor, few acres of green well manicured lawns and finally the winds playing the notes of Mozart. With this notion I have been whiling away time without writing about my one year well spent at IIMB. Publishing few decent shots of IIMB has been delayed a lot due to this laziness well masked behind such conjured notions.

A few years back I applied for this executive management program from IIMB called GMITE - General Management Program for IT Executives with full knowledge that I wasn’t passing the experience criteria. I was just wishfully praying that the selection committee get temporary blindness while going over the experience column on my application, but nothing like that happened and my application was rejected. This program is almost similar to an eMBA or executive MBA. The next year again I threw in the application form sitting at a customer location in Godalming, UK and nothing did materialize. The third year not due to any particular interest but more of a habit I dusted & modified my Statement of Purpose and my Job Profile and filled the application form and sent it across. I remember it was Christmas season and I was in Chennai, the year was 2009. I was checking my mails on the mobile browser and voila I had made it through the selection list. Shock & Surprise were the initial reactions followed by joy, happiness and then finally followed by checking my bank balance for the fee aspect. I was sure I was going to be one of the youngest members of the class at around 4+ years of total experience. Told the happy news to my better half, family & friends and was waiting for the first class to begin in January. Went to IIMB to pay the first term fees and was amazed to see the HUGE (make no mistake H U G E) campus, green (really green), beautiful architecture and bang on the ever crowded Bannerghatta Road. First day was orientation, group photograph, and an awesome session on psychology, human mind & the brain, the session was taken by a qualified doctor from UK. Moral of the session other than lots of amazing facts and informative anecdotes was the fact that the brain can take what ever is thrown to it and hence please learn all the subjects that were to follow in the two semesters. A polite and informative way of getting the point across.

The class was a mix of people with varied experience, starting from 3++ to 20+ years of experience. There was representation from about 40+ companies in our batch.

Following were the major subjects that were part of the program:

Course Map (courtesy Sharath)

Most of the subjects were core for business, management & career growth. We struggled to understand few aspects of core subjects from the Finance & Economics domain and had to put in quite a bit of effort.

Companies (courtesy Sharath)

Now just looking at this map of companies, you can visualize what kind of perspective, knowledge and experience the group brings to the table during discussions, informal chats and table topics. Mind blowing array of unique work cultures, best practices etc.

Every Friday my day started at around 6 early morning to wake up, get ready, check the time table and pack my bag and get to college. Breakfast was at college combined with discussions with friends on the week that went by and the class ahead. We also caught up on several interesting discussions on the entrepreneurial aspirations of many and yes, about the assignments as well. Classes began at 8.00 am and the professors would start their wonderful delivery of the subject. The beauty of such top notch colleges stem from none other than the professors and the students. The professors were unbelievably awesome and yes we students were decent too (hope so :P). It was tough during the initial few weeks to get used to sitting long hours at one place and listening to lectures, it was like we were revisiting school after gaining some experience. We also used to have some eventful discussions moderated by the Profs. Then slowly the assignments started, few assignments used to take up weekends and threw my travel schedules out of the window. After class we used to be treated to some soulful food, it was some kind of penance from the college for the day long sessions. After that I used to leave to office.It was quite strange to reach office at 3.00 pm as it was the time people generally leave on Fridays. I used to walk into office amidst a few weird glares from people.

Eventually May came and my birthday went without a big bang as it was also exam time, nights became short, coffee became stronger and my eyes widened. I somehow managed to do decently well in all my papers. A week or two was our holiday break a.k.a summer vacation. We were back to campus and the same schedule started and before we realized we had hit upon the electives. I chose Strategic Marketing and Business Intelligence and had fun. The Final week was hellish and had few friends compare it to the Army Hell Week. We had classes in the morning and exams in the late evening. I travelled around 400 kms in one week, my day used to start at 5:30, used to get ready and reach college and we used to have class from 8 -5 and then exams from 5:30 - 7:30 -- 8:30 and by the time I reached home it used to be 10 and then study for a few hours for the next exam and sleep. Whoa it was fanatical but I really loved and lived up to the challenge.

Last few weeks, a bunch of like minded photographers got together and walked around campus clicking, shooting, and capturing anything that moved & stood still - almost everything. We couldn’t do too much justice to the great campus of IIMB. Anyways I am sharing the pictures below; please do share your comments and critique.

I call this set the

‘Battle between Light & Darkness’

‘The Dance of Light & Shadow’

If you like the pictures or would like to provide some feedback please provide in via the following links

Flickr

Guest Book

All the pictures and the video have been shot with a 5 year old P&S Canon S3 IS camera. Thanks for reading.

Cheers,

Monish

Agumbe Rainforest Expedition

2010-09-01T10:56:00.001+05:30

Video of the pill bug

View only the pictures & videos (The article only has a snapshot of the entire set of pictures. The full collection is available in the slideshow.)

If you are the naturalist kind, with great love for wildlife, nature and looking for some time off to hone or work on your hobby like photography, bird watching, herpetology etc you are spoilt for choices. Yes you have the backpackers holiday, then the budget holiday, then a normal holiday, then the elite holiday then the eco holidays, then the jungle lodges holiday but in none of these do you get the real down to earth or down to reality feel of a true naturalist or their home terrain, the conditions in which they must perform a great deal of day to day activities like surveys, tracking wildlife, noting temperature, basic living facilities, dueling weather conditions, treacherous terrain, unrelenting leeches / ticks, unpredictable surprises.

I signed up for the Agumbe Rainforest Expedition led by Amogavarsha.Our mandate was very clear- to get the feel of a naturalist working in a field camp and try to spot various snakes, insects, frogs and lizards.

Well to quickly give you a short reckoner about Agumbe, with a little help from wiki - Agumbe is a village located in the Shimoga district in the state of Karnataka, India about 360 KMs from Bangalore. Lying in the Thirthahalli taluk and the Malnad region, Agumbe is among the places in India that receive very heavy rainfall earning it the sobriquet, "Cherrapunji of the South".It is also the home of the Agumbe Rainforest Research Station, the only permanent rainforest research station in India. The renowned herpetologist, Romulus Whitaker called Agumbe the capital of King Cobra. Since 2005, Naxalite activity has been observed near Agumbe and hence, a lot of Karnataka State Police personnel have been deployed and checkposts have been created in all intersections. This however has not hindered visitors from visiting the region to enjoy the natural beauty of Agumbe and its
surroundings. Agumbe has lots of waterfalls to visit and a famous sunset point.

More info
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agumbe | http://agumbe.com/ | http://www.agumbe.com/AgumbeRainforestResearchStation_ARRS.asp

Few emails exchanged, money changed hands, a few phone calls made and we set sail or must I say set foot to Agumbe, we started from Bangalore on Friday, 20th August. The trip members were Karthick,Dhurv, Umesh, Kiran & I. We took the KSRTC bus, the Rajahamsa variant, rickety but not too bad. The drive from Thirthahalli to Agumbe was very picturesque, it was about 30 kms of untouched beauty and was very scenic. We reached Agumbe in the morning at 7 and we met Gowrishankar-the naturalist at the bus stand . He is the legend who heads the King Cobra telemetry program and who features in the "Secrets of the King Cobra" video. Really nice to read his tales, first hand experience tales from the jungle and straight from his heart - http://pogirigowrishankar.wordpress.com/. A few of us got into a Maruthi Van. The vehicle and the location and the driver reminded me of the terrorist kidnap scene in the Tamil movie 'Roja', while the others were bundled into the sturdier counterpart - the Bolero. We passed through some stunning grass lands overlooking the mountains and then through thick forests which were so characteristic of the rain forests. The rain forests are usually dark, with damp under growths, leaves fresh and glistening with the dew drops and most of them adorned with rain drops and the canopy is high and consists of huge trees. We reached the base and were just wandering around when Gowri came and informed us that they had noticed some scat on the track and it could be a Leopards scat so we rushed back to the spot and they started their analysis, on the quantity, size, consistency, constituents, freshness, smell etc and eventually they were quite divided over the fact that it could have belonged to a leopard or to a pack of wild dogs. We then returned to the base field camp and we saw the field base camp, a nice few rooms with dorms, a kitchen, 2 washrooms and 2 toilets and a grand Multi Utility Area - lunch place, movie viewing area, animal surgery area etc etc. And within a few minutes we had our first sighting of the tigrina frog.

We then went and had a wash in luke warm water, The entire field station runs on solar power and they use the diesel generator for rare emergencies. We had some awesome kadambuttu (rice balls a coorgi / kodagu speciality) with dhall, chutney and Mangalore buns with nice plantains. Gowrishankar spoke of the station rules, jungle rules, facilities, safety precautions etc and in ten minutes we started chalking out the plan for the day. The plan was to complete a nice sighting walk around the property and try to spot interesting small little insects, snakes etc. We wore our leech socks as the place was teeming with leeches with Dracula intentions of sucking us dry. Our first sighting during the walk was the pill bug which comes from the family of Armadillidiidae. The interesting fact is that it has a natural defense and curls up when attacked or intruded by some foreign object.

We then started the battle with the leeches - this is one of the many battles that you cant win against nature. You kick them, pull them, trouble them etc but they have no complaints and continue to climb over you to have their meal in a very business, professional style. Actually when you realize that you are in their battleground and they are not disgusting you get used to their presence and go about your work like they go about their’s. A joke that I made out of this was the more tense you become the more hot your blood becomes and the leeches can track you better with their heat sensing devices. I really wonder of the things that man is yet to learn from nature- if only we could have painless injections like the way leeches attach themselves, have their full and then roll off to digest their food. The way they sense the heat and come towards the victim and then inject the
anesthesia so that the victim doesn't feel the pain and then inject an anti-coagulant so that blood flow is fast and the body doesn't clot the opening and when it is done it falls off without the victims knowledge - wow what a wonderful piece of engineering. We then spotted some very interesting fungi which we tried capturing using several tricks in the book. We kept walking in the middle of nowhere and kept spotting small spiders, flowers and several interesting patterns and plants.

Another interesting moth that we met.

After a 10 - 15 minute walk we came to the area where two tents were set up. A nice cosy tent with sleeping beds inside where the more adventurous of us were to spend the night. We continued and tried capturing the dew drops on the creepers which I assumed were the jewels of the rain forest. Gowrishankar & Amogh kept telling us nice interesting facts of the ecology of the rain forests and the different species of wildlife that is present there. We went in search of the viper and kraits but to our luck we didn't spot a single one.We spotted a type of Leptotyphlops http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leptotyphlops - the world's smallest snake which is also blind, this particular one was shedding.

We spotted a few nice damselflies and lots of hoppers. Then we decided to do the stream and waterfall trail. We had to walk in nice marshy trails and through streams and finally we reached the waterfall. Now it was time for more trial and error with the camera settings. On our way back we walked for few hundred meters in the stream which had nice flowing water. I really felt I was in the middle of an adventure in search of some hidden treasure. This is where I loved the fact that I wore my floaters and not my boots as floaters are really useful for these conditions, dry faster and are more comfy (than wearing wet shoes).

We got back to the base camp tired after the nice walk and had some great chow - vegetarian nutritious food. This is when we had our first snake sighting, we spotted the green vine snake. For the last 2 years it has been my dream to see a lot of snakes and if possible photograph them as well. I got to see a few big fat rat snakes in JP Nagar 7th phase but was not able to take pictures. Hence this spotting made me overjoyed. Kept clicking pictures till my index finger started aching By the clicking of the shutter, the snake must have thought - did I become famous overnight? the press is after me! :) . We were lucky to see the snake hunting, the way it is dangles low for like 15 – 20 minutes and once it spots its prey it goes almost parallel to the ground about a few cms away from the ground and in a poise ready to strike. Since it was going to feed we didn't want to disturb it and we went away in search of greener pastures. We spotted a gecko and a bush frog.

Then we had a 30 minutes break during which a few of us went on a walking trail and spotted the pill bug again and a few insects here and there. Highlight here was the offbeat locations that we were in.

Amogh then took all of us to the kundadri peak / hilltop. we could not see the kundadri valley there as mist was covering the entire place. we saw the ancient 17th century Jain temple and photographed a few impatiens flowers.

While we were descending we were able to see the Kundadri valley below, here are few shots.

Video of the kundadri peak

On the way back we stopped at the bus stand and went into a small little hotel and belted everything that was in sight and returned back to the field station. We freshened up and in some time we started watching the documentary - secrets of the king cobra, a documentary shot right at the research station and the forests nearby and you will see Gowrishankar in most of the footage. Amogh was also part of the production team. It was such an inspiring, interesting, & scary video and we were all so involved that we didn't notice a few leeches taking this lack of concentration to their advantage and making us blood footed. I would recommend this video so highly that I could type the reco here. Then we had a question and answer session with Gowri and it was very insightful. One would definitely admire him and his courage. Now time to get back to photography..we had a photo review session with Amogh who reviewed and critiqued our pictures and shared a few tips We had an open session on flash photography etc . Time again for chow and by now the Cherrapunji face of Agumbe started to show up, it was belting, pelting raindrops that it was almost like crackers going off, thump thump thump....it would have made a royal enfield owner proud.

After chow few of us decided to brave the rains and try to track the bull frogs and the gliding frogs and the snakes. A few of us set off in the rain with our rain jackets. This is where we underestimated the heavy rain. It was so heavy that in less than 30 minutes we were drenched and cold. We were walking in pitch darkness in muddles of water with torches providing a thin trail of light. After about 50 minutes we decided to call off the expedition for the night. We then braved the way in the darkness to the tent, that itself was like an adventure. We then took about 20 minutes to get each and every leech off ourselves and then got into the tents. All we could hear was crickets screaming and frogs croaking. My phone was totally wet and started working in a way it was never intended to. It switched off and on at its own will and then open applications that it liked.
Inside the jungle in the tent I opened the entire phone and started to blow dry it and finally it worked enough for me to tweet for a while with my BSNL sim and then it conked off and I also dozed off.

Day 2

Morning I was woken up the Malabar Whistling Thrush singing a new tune making me feel out of the world, imagine being woken up by a bird singing out a nice rhyme.

We went back to the base camp and got ready and had a nice English breakfast. We were going to go and participate in the telemetry project, Dheeraj one of the research affiliates who is working on the king Cobra tracking program would take us to the last spot where it was spotted yesterday. He explained the process where they capture a snake, insert the chip surgically and then release the snake back into the forest and track it from the morning to evening and then leave after the snake has settled for the evening. They take the weather & humidity reading at regular intervals and keep tracking the position of the snake. The day we went the King apparently had a huge meal and was well settled in a hole in a delayed trunk of a tree. So there went the sighting for a toss but we were happy to share the same vicinity of the King. We then went to some hidden waterfalls discovered by Dheeraj during his spare time. There we spotted the scarlet minivet and the tree pies and few bee eaters. We also saw the skittering frog, lantern insects and a gecko.

We then started the trek to the Jogigundi falls. It was nice and adventurous with fallen trees and slippery terrain. We spotted a Calotes rouxii and a few camouflaged trees, makes you wonder if the army fatigues are inspired by these trees.

and here is the waterfall.

Video of the Jogigundi waterfalls

After this we returned for lunch and then we planned for the final trek. It was a 3 hour trek in complete wilderness. Our trek leader was carrying a machete to clear several branches for us to even proceed. The undergrowth was very thick. After a grueling 90 minutes we reached another hidden treasure - a waterfall, sat for a while and marched back. Had to pack our bags and board our bus to get back to Bangalore. A big thanks to Amoghavarsha and Gowrishankar for their help and taking us to some great spots.

The article above only has a snapshot of the entire set of pictures. The full collection is available in the slideshow below.

A special mention to Prashanth as well for giving us some lip smacking, soul searching pork fry for dinner on the second day, we licked the vessel clean.

Here is the link for the complete set of pictures

Pictures

Day 1

Day 2

Videos

Video - 1 : Pill Bug

Video - 2 : Kundadri Peak

Video - 3 : Jogigundi Falls

If you like the pictures or would like to provide some feedback please provide in via the following links

Flickr

Guest Book

All the pictures and the video have been shot with a 5 year old P&S Canon S3 IS camera.

Thanks for reading.

Few Pictures have come out in the Furs Fins & Feathers Magazine, January 2011 Edition – Article Here
Cheers,

Monish

Photographic Books

2010-08-12T10:16:00.005+05:30

2) A Bug Called Shutterbug – 2
Author – Monish Matthias
Cost – 500 INR
Type – FlipBook
Pages - 20
Category – Abstract, People, Wildlife, Nature
Date – 10 August 2010

The Book is here -

Link – A Bug Called Shutterbug - 2

1) A Bug Called Shutterbug - 1
Author – Monish Matthias
Cost – 35 – 48 USD
Type – Hard Cover, Soft Cover, Image Wrap premium
Pages - 80
Category – Abstract, People, Wildlife, Nature, Places
Date – 18 January 2009

The Book Preview and the link is – A Bug Called Shutterbug – 1

Coorg Madikeri

2010-07-16T22:54:00.001+05:30

Three days in the coffee hill station - the magical Coorg a.k.a Madikeri. Though it was off season was lucky to green the entire town green in color. Also was lucky to see Thala Cauvery covered in mist, visibility was a mere 50 minutes.

Day 1 - Kushal Nagar, Bylakuppe, Nisargadham, Madikeri Town, Night stay in the middle of a coffee plantation.

Day 2 - Thala Cauvery, Abbey falls, East End Hotel (yummy food), Madikeri town, Night stay in the middle of a coffee plantation.

Day 3 - Plantation walk, Dubare Elephant camp and returned back to sweet Bangalore.

Wildlife highlights - Photographed a particular frog on the banks of the cauvery river and a colorful bug on the bark of a tree near Abbey falls. Also the skin texture of deers and an elephant. Also I liked one picture of the hair of the elephant against the sky as a background.

People highlights - Though I am usually shy photographing people, this time I managed to capture few shots of the Monks...quite glad.

On the shopping front picked up a unique coffee wine and few traditional spices.

Do drop your suggestions and ideas.

The picture album link is here - Coorg Album.

Rock Agama – Part 2

2010-05-01T14:07:00.001+05:30

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My interest in this species started off a few months back when I was walking near a empty plot in JP Nagar 7th Phase, I spotted the colorful male and a few days later spotted the beautiful black and white female. This pair remained elusive for a couple of weeks and finally I could spot them and photograph them. The pictures can be found here Rock Agama – Part 1

I usually commute to office via Kannakapura road and then through the Thurahalli range. Once while returning back home, I decided to take a deviation away from my usual route to do a bit of birding. In this route suddenly I saw a couple of lizards and rock agama’s basking in the sun. Their habitat was a group of rocks. I started going there very often and after spotting them, hang around there and try to get some photographs. Every day it would take 10 – 15 minutes for them to get used to my presence after which I could get some happy close up shots. Their colony of rocks was wonderful, there were 3-4 different species of lizards co existing peacefully. After a few weeks here are the published pictures.

Sad part has been the two rock agama’s near my house has been run over by speeding vehicles. My heart still feels heavy when I write about them. These guys have just not adapted themselves to the fast life in cities, they bask in the sun in the middle of the road and they cannot run fast like few other creatures and invariably get run over.

They are very similar to the American sister group of iguanas. Agamas are active at day. Many species are perfectly adapted to a life in hot deserts, others live in the trees of tropical rainforests.Agamas have well-developed, strong legs. Their tail can't be shed and regenerated like in some other lizard groups. Some agama species are able to change their colors.Agamas form groups of ten to twenty. The "leader" is an old male, while females and young males constitute the other members of the group.

These fighting strokes among males may be very violent and often result in hematomas or fractured jaws.

A few weeks of observation.

The set can be found here - http://www.flickr.com/photos/minmaxmim/sets/72157623966884408/

Pictures from the first post

Rock Agama – Part 1

~Monish

Rock Agama

2010-03-17T11:49:00.007+05:30

http://www.flickr.com/photos/minmaxmim/4437012417/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/minmaxmim/4436997545/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/minmaxmim/4437772508/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/minmaxmim/4436995615/

An agama is any one of the various small, long-tailed, insect-eating lizards of the genus Agama. Agamas originally lived in forest and bush across Africa, but have since adapted to live in villages and compounds where their habitat has been cleared. They live inside the thatch of huts and other small spaces, emerging only to feed. If caught out in the open, agamas are able to run quickly on their hind legs to reach shelter. Most agamas are polygamous. Males may hold six or more females in their territory for breeding. During courtship, the male bobs his head to impress the female. Occasionally, females initiate courtship by offering their hindquarters to the male and then running until he is able to catch up. The breeding season is typically March-May with eggs being laid in June-September during the season after the rains. Eggs are laid in clutches of up to twelve.

Courtesy & more info

The most interesting fact is many people keep these as pets as well (am sure not in India).

Males of the African species reach over a foot (30 cm) long and sport bright orange, blue and brown colors. Sexual success determines the intensity of colors. For the prize of a harem of females, males fight one another sideways blows of their tails. The winners are always startlingly bright but the defeated males turn out a dull grey, similar to the females. Many of the actions of males fighting are also seen during male mating behavior. When a female first approaches a male will bob his head and show his bright throat, as he does when first challenged by a male. If the female is receptive the pair move closer together and mate. Females lay between 3 and 10 eggs. Changes in color also occur if the male is stressed or threatened. A color usually not visible might be flashed by some species, such as the African agama which turns to face an intruder and opens its mouth to expose the brilliant orange inside. More info

Basking occurs mainly in the morning between ten and noon (a good time for photography I shot it at 1:30), agama is a sit and wait predator. The agama that I spotted was about two compounds away from my house in South Bangalore, I spotted the bright and flashy male and also the almost black, white and brown female. I ran back home to get the camera and I shot a few pictures of the male but before I could get a few shots of the female, she disappeared. The informal names are Peninsular Rock Agama and South Indian Rock Agama, the real name is Psammophilus dorsalis. I have also heard that the Blanford's Rock Agama Psammophilus blanfordanus is found in India (Bihar, Orissa, Central Provinces, Eastern Ghats, Travancore south to Trivandrum) - Hope I can get a good glimpse of the female as well.

Also this is my first journal entry. Thanks to Kalyan Varma for helping me to identify this species.

Time for some pictures.

~Monish

JOURNAL SUMMARY

2010-03-17T11:10:00.010+05:30

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This journal summary will contain a synopsis of the journal entry and will provide a option to read more.

29/12/11 – The story of the Christmas Plum Cake & the XMas Tree [read more]

17/12/11 – Calendar 2012 [read more]

02/10/11 – the pInk cIty [read more]

16/9/11 – Agumbe - Rainforest Rendezvous Recurs II [read more]

11/7/11 – Jungle Lodges Features My Work [read more]

1/7/11 – Biligiriranga Hills a.k.a BR Hills – 2 Wild Days [read more]

17/6/11 – Kemmanagundi – Explore, Nature, Trek & Cleanup - [read more]

31/5/11 – Bandipur - A Unplanned Getaway - [read more]

4/5/11 – Aero Show 2011, Bangalore - [read more]

28/3/11 – Lalbagh Flower Show - An annual ritual! - [read more]

17/2/11 – Snakes, A Love Story - [read more]

13/2/11 – National Geographic Daily Dozen - Agumbe Vine Snake - [read more]

11/1/11 – Furs Fins & Feathers Magazine: My Photographs - [read more]

22/12/2010 – IIMB A Photo Essay: Battle Between Light & Darkness - [read more]

01/09/2010 – Agumbe Photography Expedition - [read more]

16/07/2010 - Coorg / Madikeri - [read more]

01/05/2010 - Few weeks of tracking Rock Agama's, nice pictures - [read more]

17/03/2010 - Fascinating Rock Agama's Spotted in South Bangalore - [read more]

2010-02-28T12:57:00.002+05:30

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ITALY

Period: November – December 2008 (7 days)

Solo traveler traveled through Rome, Florence, Pisa, Venice & Burano Islands.

2010-01-30T10:36:00.002+05:30

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HESARAGHATTA WORKSHOP

Art of Seeing - The Magical Light with Mahesh Bhat.

Wide barren grasslands, sun blazing away, huge birds of prey, 8 photographers pounding the 300 acre land. A result of the 2 day workshop with Mahesh Bhat at Hesaraghatta.

Day 1

Day 2

2010-01-28T13:04:00.002+05:30

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RAINFOREST EXPEDITION

Four days in the wilderness of Valparai, Western Ghats - exploring the thrill of wildlife sightings, might of nature, beauty of vegetation, flora and fauna under the expert leadership of Kalyan Varma.

Complete list of spotting can be found here

Day 1

Day 2

Day 3

Day 4

PLACES

2009-11-11T17:31:00.003+05:30

1) Coorg / Madikeri (*new July 2010)

2) Places around the world

Coorg / Madikeri

PLACES

NATURE

2009-11-11T14:19:00.004+05:30

HOME

NATURE

ABSTRACT

2009-11-10T18:08:00.006+05:30

HOME

ABSTRACT

BUILDINGS

2009-11-03T10:57:00.005+05:30

HOME

BUILDINGS

PEOPLE

2009-10-31T22:19:00.008+05:30

HOME

PEOPLE

WILDLIFE

2009-10-30T21:54:00.008+05:30

HOME

WILDLIFE

[Animals (W & D), Reptiles, Insects, Birds]

ABOUT ME

2009-10-30T21:14:00.020+05:30